How do you define success in life? What do you have to accomplish in order to be satisfied that you have lived a worthwhile and successful life? Do you have to own your own home free and clear to be considered successful? Or do you have to make a million dollars? Or ten million?
I’m sure you would agree that financial success or a successful career does not define a successful life. I think it doesn’t even contribute to a successful life. Yet we spend so much of our time and energy on these areas of our life.
The first step to living a successful life is to live a transcendent life. I don’t mean to encourage you to move to a mountain top and meditate all day. A transcendent life is one that is not self centered and ego driven, rather purpose driven and devoted to a higher cause and set of values; i.e. living a life according to the guidelines of the Torah.
But this is just the first step. To be truly successful in life we must transmit these values and ideals to the next generation. When we raise our children with a firm foundation they then have the ability to accomplish and succeed at everything in life. When our children our raised by society’s standard-less and shifting values, they have no firm foundation and it hinders their achievement in all areas.
Just the other day I read a story about Estee Ackerman, she is an eleven year old table-tennis champ (ranked fourth in her age group) from New York who forfeited a chance to advance her ranking because the game conflicted with her observance of Shabbat. Her parents can say that they have been successful in life. She is privileged to be raised with a firm foundation and because of it she will be more successful in life.
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Join me for another moment for an important insight from this week’s Torah portion. The portion begins (Exodus 6:2-3) “God spoke to Moses, and He said to him, "I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob etc.” On the words “I appeared”, the classic commentator Rashi helpfully adds “to the fathers”.
Quick question – don’t we know that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are “the fathers”? What is Rashi adding to our understanding of the verse?
Through emphasizing that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are the fathers of the Jewish people he is telling us that more than merely physical ancestors they also transmitted their values and ideals to their children. They were true fathers who successfully raised their descendants true to their ways. That is why the Torah is mentioned them here and that is what Rashi is emphasizing in his commentary.
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Here’s the question we all have to ask ourselves every day: What am I doing today to ensure that I will be successful in life?